When, half an hour later, Hagar opened the door of her own room, the dawn was coming. It was a comfortable bedroom, large, cool, and high-pitched, and it, too, had a balcony. The bed invited; she was deadly tired; and yet she doubted if she could sleep. She stood in the middle of the room, her hands over her eyes, then, a little stumblingly, she went out upon the balcony. It was a small place, commanding the east. There was a chair and a little table on which you could rest your arms, and your head upon them, sideways so that you could see the sky. It was just grey light; there were three palm trees rustling, rustling. After a while purple came into the sky, and then pale, pale gold. The wind fell, the palms stood still, the gold widened until all the east was gold. She saw distant, strange, flat roofs, a distant dome and slender towers, all against the pale, pale gold. The air was cool and unearthly still. Her head upon her arm, her face very quiet, her eyes open upon the deepening light, she stayed until the gardeners came into the garden below. CHAPTER XX MEDWAY Five days later, Medway, one morning, recognized the Colonel. "Why, my dear father, what are you doing here?... What's it all about?" His feeble voice died away; without waiting for an answer, he lapsed into a kind of semi-consciousness. Out of this, day by day, though, he came more strongly. Directly he appeared to accept, without further curiosity, his father's occasional presence in the room. Another interval, and he began to question the physician and nurses. "Back, eh?--and leg, and this thing on my head. I don't remember.--A kind of crash.... What happened?" Evasive answers did for a while, but it was evident that they would not do for ever. In the end it was Thomson who told him. "You did, did you!" exclaimed the doctor in the outer room. "Well, I don't know but what it's just as well!" "I couldn't help it, sir. He pinned me down." The Colonel spoke. "Just what and how much did you tell him?" "I told him, sir, about the wreck, and how he got beaten about, and how I fastened him, when he was senseless and we were sinking, to a bit of spar, and how we were picked up with some of the crew about dawn. And about his being brought here, and being very well cared for, and your coming from New York, you and Miss Ashendyne, and that he'd been wonderful close to dying, but was all right now, and what the date was, and things like that, sir." "Did he ask for his wife?" "Yes, sir." "And you told him?" "Yes, sir." The doctor rose. "Well, I'm glad it's done. I'll go see--" and disappeared into the sick-room. "I think you did well, Thomson," said the Colonel. "When you've got to take a thing, you'd better stand up and take it, and the quicker the better." "Yes, sir," said Thomson; and adjusted the jalousies, it being now very warm and the glare at times insupportable.